The future of agriculture and climate change

The study, published in Nature Climate Change,
focused on the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, an emerging global
breadbasket that as of 2013 supplied 10 percent of the world's soybeans.
The researchers used variations in temperature and precipitation across
the state over an eight-year period to estimate the sensitivity of the
region's agricultural production to climate change. Those historical comparisons can help in making predictions about the sensitivity of agriculture to future climate change.

The study found that, if the patterns from 2002 to 2008 hold in the
future, an increase in average temperature in Mato Grosso of just 1
degree Celsius will lead to a nine to 13 percent reduction in overall
production of soy and corn. "This is worrisome given that the
temperature in the study region is predicted to rise by as much as 2
degrees by midcentury under the range of plausible greenhouse gas
emissions scenarios," said Avery Cohn, assistant professor of
environment and resource policy at Tufts, who led the work while he was a
visiting researcher at Brown.